Diomedes Díaz
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| Diomedes Diaz
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| Background information
<tr><td>Birth name</td><td colspan="2">Diomedes Dionisio Díaz Maestre</td></tr><tr><td>Also known as</td><td colspan="2">El Cacique de La Junta</td></tr><tr><td>Born</td><td colspan="2">May 26, 1957</td></tr><tr><td>Origin</td><td colspan="2">La Junta, La Guajira, Colombia</td></tr><tr><td>Genre(s)</td><td colspan="2">Vallenato, Latin</td></tr><tr><td>Years active</td><td colspan="2">1976–Present</td></tr><tr><td style="padding-right: 1em;">Label(s)</td><td colspan="2">Sony Music</td></tr><tr><td>Website</td><td colspan="2">http://www.elcaciquediomedesdiaz.com</td></tr> |
Diomedes Dionisio Díaz Maestre (born May 26, 1957) is a Colombian vallenato singer and composer. He is one of the most widely recognized performers of this musical genre. His well known moniker El Cacique de la Junta derives from his birthplace, La Junta, a small village in southern La Guajira Department, Colombia.<ref name=Cacique>Diomedes Díaz: El Cacique de la Junta. ColombiaLink.com Accessed 29 September 2006.</ref>
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[edit] Early years
Diomedes was born and raised on a farm called "Carrizal" on the outskirts of La Junta; his father, Rafael Maria Díaz, and his mother, Elvira Maestre, were very poor, something that Diomedes always sought to change. His childhood was spent helping his parents and eight brothers with farm duties, while he was musically influenced by his locally renowned uncle, Martin Elias. His friends nicknamed him El Chivato ("the little goat"), making fun of his young vibrating voice; he became part of the attraction for every party in the house.
Eventually Díaz' uncle decided to help him train his voice and compose songs; Díaz quickly mastered his vocal training and was invited to perform at parties. Eager to succeed, he moved to Valledupar to work as a gardener. He also worked as a messenger and office boy for a local radio station, Radio Guatapuri, pursuing the oportunity to convince disc jockeys to play his future songs. Between 1974 and 1975, he got his first song recording deal with Jorge Quiróz and Luciano Poveda, a well known vallenato group; they recorded the song Cariñito de Mi Vida which put Díaz in the spotlight.
Díaz received invitations to more parties, gigs and reunions, and his voice captivated a new generation of fans. At the cultural week for a local high school, he met Rafael Orozco Maestre, an emerging vallenato singer who would give Díaz his famous nickname El Cacique de La Junta.
After saving money, he recorded his first LP with accordion player Nafer Duran, which was played on radio stations and catapulted Díaz to regional fame.
[edit] Doris Adriana Niño
[edit] Homicide
The night of May 14 and early morning May 15, 1997, Díaz was having a party in his apartment in Bogotá, Colombia, when his friend and fan, Doris Adriana Niño, was killed.<ref name=ElPais27Sept>Diomedes Díaz se entregó a la justicia. El Pais (27 September 2002). (Spanish)</ref><ref name=MJC>Colombian Ministry of Justice. Case T-781455. (15 January 2004) Accessed on 29 September 2006. (Spanish)</ref> According to the Constitutional Court of Colombia, some people at the party, including Niño, were consuming drugs, but is not clear if she was involuntarily forced to take drugs or voluntarily used them. The report says that Niño was raped, and had had an argument with a pregnant woman at the party, Luz Consuelo Martínez.<ref name=MJC/> Niño died that night and her body appeared on the outskirts of Bogotá, near the Village of San Onofre, municipality of Combita (Boyacá Department).
[edit] Legal proceedings
Díaz was captured by order of the Attorney general's office on October 3, 1997, and was conceded house arrest after proving that he had Guillain-Barré syndrome. On August 11, 2000, a judge ordered Díaz transferred to jail, considering that his illness had been considerably overcome, but when authorities went to his house to complete the transfer, Díaz had escaped and given refugee by Illegal paramilitary groups headed by Rodrigo Tovar.<ref name=RevSemana>Revista Semana: Articulo - Vidas Paralelas semana.com Accessed 27 October 2006.</ref>
During the trial, Díaz was tried as an "absent inmate"; the judge concluded that Niño had a great amount of drugs the night she died, but the Attorney General's Office determined that her death had been caused by a provoked asphyxiation. The Colombian Bureau of Legal Medicine determined that she had died from pressure put over her mouth and nose.<ref name=ElPais27Sept/>
On August 20, 2002, after a year and a half of evading house arrest, Díaz turned himself in to authorities in Valledupar, accompanied by two of his lawyers.<ref name=ElPais27Sept/> On August 21, 2002 a Colombian Superior Tribunal reduced his jail term from 144 to 37 months; Niño's family protested that the sentence was too low.<ref name=ElPais27Sept/> He had already spent a year in jail and had two years pending before his escape.
According to the trial, Díaz did not commit an unintentional homicide (homicidio preterintencional), in which the aggressor wants to induce damage but ends up causing death as the previous judge had ruled. Instead it was determined that he had committed a "mea culpa homicide" (homicidio culposo), which according to Colombian law, is a less severe unintentional homicide.<ref name=ElPais27Sept/>
[edit] Criticism of trial
Doris' family, specially her brother Rodrigo, indignated, criticized the lenient treatment given to Díaz by authorities as he expressed in his statements after Díaz turn himself in:
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[edit] Discography
[edit] Famous quotes
- "Sobre mi la ropa... y las moscas por imprudentes" (Over me, my clothes... and the flies being imprudent)
- "Con mucho gusto!!" (With pleasure!)
- "Se las dejo ahi" ("I'll leave it there")
[edit] Notes
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